Rants are welcome, even encouraged :)
Feel free to skip the following text
The last 4 phones I had were just a mess. I am starting to loose hope of there being something that would work well. I just recently got a new phone, it’s a mess as usual. Maybe what I am experiencing is enough for a warranty claim, maybe it’s just a quirk to be dealt with…
Every couple years every newer phone I try is just worse and worse. I thought that maybe once PinePhone and available software gets mature enough…, but at this point, maybe other phones will just get crap enough.
My last good phone was ironically an ultra-cheap Lark Cumulus 5HD. It was just 50 EUR new. No lags, no crashes, swappable battery, a just works experience. 50 bucks…
Chronologically…
Moto G5s Plus
Great hardware, except that focus on my camera was kind-of broken, but I was too lazy to get that repaired under warranty.
But SW, god damn Motorola. Slow buggy mess. Crashes, freezes, battery drain. BUT, I was able to fix it with ✨a custom ROM✨
Poco X3 Pro
If you had any MIUI device, you know. Alarm clock may get killed optimized, ton of bugs to learn working around, built-in ads and spyware. Lots of it, based on blocked DNS logs.
HW - cheap and powerful. Average lifespan of the motherboard being whopping… 9 months. The phone ate 3 of them.
Moto G54 5G Power
Once again, great HW, SW not so much. The 3 button navigation was completely broken in high DPI and what made me return it - non-skippable updates. Just full-screen permanent update notifications. Only option: update. Nope.
Ulefone Armor 24
Few SW issues: Long-pressing dock icons while an app is open crashes “Quickstep”, in turn killing navigation (both gesture and buttons…). Alarm clock gets killed most of the time even with all optimizations off.
HW, least I think I should classify it as such: The phone has a chance to negotiate (?) 12V for split-second intervals using QC 2.0 (based on my USB tester) which it doesn’t expect, and throws overvoltage error. This happens with all QC-compatible chargers I tried, even the original one when used with OTG adapter.
The original one otherwise uses USB-C with PD, which works, sure. But after using it data transfer to PC via cable is broken until reboot.
I was very much a full-time phone person, but now it’s too much. I got a cheap touchscreen ThinkPad and use it with KDE Plasma (wayland). I was doing basically everything on a phone before, now I instead try not to, but with everything being an app, damn.
Pixel 6. Upgraded from a pixel 4a.
Where’s my fucking headphone jack.
Also why is the 6 so heavy
Unless you have a philosophical/moral reason against it, try a Samsung. Can’t speak for the cheaper models, but the top models (S-series and Z-series) are usually really great.
Yeah, I do. Mocking Apple, then doing the exact same thing themselves. Also I kind of require a headphone jack and SD card slot. Even if the phone had >= 1TB, it’s still great for independent storage backups. Of course, being inside the phone it shouldn’t be relied on, but it did save me with the Poco X3 Pro for example. For added security, I use Termux and pipe the TAr archives to GPG.
The advantage of this is being doable basically immediately and offline at high speed, anytime.
But regardless, thanks for the recommendation. Maybe it will once be my only choice.
Well, if you don’t mind alternative OS, try SailfishOS with an officially supported device. I used it with the Xperia 10 III and I really liked the experience, sans a few bugs.
It has a compatibility layer to run Android apps, though not everything is supported (to my irritation, fingerprint is not), but it works well.
I think newer devices are supported nowadays.
Edit: As of now, only the trial version is supported for newer phones, so to get the best experience, you should either wait for the commercial license availability, or buy a used Xperia 10 III.
I have the Samsung Galaxy A54 it has an SD card slot and I just use an adapter so I can charge it and use headphones at the same time. Some companies sell it much cheaper. The only downside that I found was that Samsung promised that all Galaxy phones would get the AI integration but when the update came out the Galaxy A54 was not included so I can’t have AI built in to my phone.
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Good luck with a headphone jack , any reason you couldn’t just use USB c headphones ? It seems like the phones you are choosing are lesser known phones with less people using it , so less testing and more like to have issues . If you want something that is just going to work you will probably have to settle with a pixel or Samsung. My galaxy s21 lasted a few years and took a beating and kept going m
Using OTG and wired headphones at once, for example with RTL-SDR.
Also my current phone (the Ulefone with charging issues) has a massive battery (85.14Wh) and is massive, which I like. For comparison, my thinkpad has a 45Wh battery.
Unfortunately, no regular brands would even think about offering a phone that’s 27.5mm (1.08 inch) thick and weighs 647g (1.43lbs). In my case, a bit more, since I also put it in a case anyway.
I agree, one of the last companies selling quality.
6 years so far on my S9, was their flagship release.
I’ve got a Fairphone 4. Had quite the headache, cause I had a slightly broken one. I don’t want to go into detail, but I can say the support on Fairphones side is excelent, they were super friendly and helped to fix the issues as best as they could. And the nice thing is that you can repair most things yourself. But it is still a “nerdy” product. Fairphone doesn’t have the best flagship with the fastes processor. But if you value something, where you own your hardware, and can repair stuff easily, you should consider it.
Fairphone 4. No complaints at all
I have an iPhone. It’s pretty recent, but definitely not the most recent. No, I don’t know exactly what model it is. It’s an utterly boring glass brick that lets me find out stuff and say stuff and take pictures. It set itself up from my last iPhone like a clone emerging from a vat, and someday it will be fated to transfer its lifeforce to its brother-self-son. Such is the way of the iPhone.
It’s… fine. I got a red one.
Pixel 4a. It has a headphone jack, the bootloader is easy to unlock, and it’s well supported by third party developers (I run LineageOS on it).
The stock kernel doesn’t support ExFAT, which is annoying. I’d prefer if it was a little smaller.
Rant: every newer phone is worse in terms of bootloader, size, or headphone jack.
The stock kernel doesn’t support ExFAT
Oh yeah, this also annoys me with my current phone due to Kiwix. Thankfully split ZIM mostly works.
Small phones pleaseeeee!
Every time I buy a new phone I’m devastated to learn that I can’t get anything usable with one hand.
I need a 5.5 inch phone, anything bigger is hard to use, anything past 6 is impossible with one hand
Oh, you’d absolutely hate my phone: https://www.gsmarena.com/ulefone_armor_24-12602.php
Look at the dimensions, especially thickness and weight. Ironically though, it feels better in hand than a large thin slab. Thin phones are better smaller.
If you’ve seen that Energizer P28k thing, this is larger and heavier.
That’s some battery. How long do you get between charges?
I try to keep it around 20 - 80 %, that’s 2 - 3 days. Fully charged, (by the way, there is more capacity beyond “100%”), 4 possibly even 5 if going to like 5%.
But I use it heavily.
Also, that flashlight at the back can actually drain it quite fast. Hell, if you have like 30% it can’t keep it on full power steadily, it starts flickering a bit. It gets completely disabled <20%. Earlier if you use it in the camera app. Ideally, if you want to use it combined with the camera you’ll have > 50%.
You may be able to charge your laptop from it if it supports 5V charging. It can supply 10W. To get some idea, my ThinkPad L390 yoga is currently consuming 3.73W as I am typing this.
But as I wrote, good luck charging it, though my unit may be defective. I don’t have another one to compare to.
I know it’s fashionable to hate Apple here, but switching from android to iPhone was the best decision Ive made. They just work. All of them. As a software guy, I spend my time making computers do stuff, so my phone needs to just work
Currently iPhone 15 Pro.
I replace every 2-4 years so I can give it to my kids another 2-4 years
- iPhone 13 Pro
- iPhone X
- iPhone 6+?
- iPhone 5?
Pixel 6 with Graphene OS.
It’s perfect. I wouldn’t swap it for anything. Graphene is a delight to use. Android as it should always have been. Regular updates, very secure, no bloat, full (optional) Play Services support, all my banking apps work.
Only downsides are:
- Google Wallet/Pay doesn’t work but I’ve never seen the point in mobile payments anyway.
- No headphone jack, which I was dead against but tbh Bluetooth earbuds these days are superb and wired headphones were cumbersome.
No headphone jack, which I was dead against but tbh Bluetooth earbuds these days are superb and wired headphones were cumbersome.
I gave that a go, but nope. I did have a phone with no headphone jack, and used BT earbuds in the past. Another battery to keep charged, having to unpair them each time to use with a laptop, then re-pair them, occasional but annoying audio cuts with RFI (WiFi hotspot, microwave oven,…), very noticeable delay with FPS games (that was otherwise unnoticeable).
Just nope. Bluetooth audio is nice with a laptop, so that when I have earphones connected to it, I don’t have to disconnect them to hear something from my phone, but that’s about it.
Pixel 6A. No headphone jack, no sd card slot, low battery life, but has grapheneos support.
Its so much heavier than the Pixel 4a, also the fingerprint sensor is worse
I agree with the one user who stated that modern phones are too goddamn big.
I’ve had Samsung’s Z Flip5 for over a year now and I’ve been really enjoying it. Small form factor when folded that actually freaking fits in women’s pockets. And when unfolded, I have a case with a ring that helps me hold it and reach higher up on the screen. Honestly, I would like if it was a bit smaller when opened, but it’s a fun compromise.
It doesn’t seem to fit in with what you want though, as it doesn’t have a headphone jack and isn’t going to be as durable as a regular phone. Still, it’s fun and I like it!
Pixel 4a with CalyxOS.
Support has ended while my phone is still working great and could probably last me a few more years (4 already) I get that companies can’t support devices forever, but I wish they would apply their 7 year support policy retroactively because now I’m going to buy a new phone for the simple reason that mine is now insecure (no security updates for firmware)
This sucks and it’s so wasteful.
An iPhone 12 Pro as my daily driver. I bought it four years ago, and might get a battery replacement in the coming months to extend its lifespan until Apple stops supporting it. The phone is as reliable as the day I bought it. It just works.
As for quirks, there are plenty that appear, disappear, and reappear with each software update. I made a post about it a while back[0]. One that bothers me the most is the ability to seek a video in the native player by swiping across the screen (not just using the scrub bar), a la Apollo for Reddit’s video player. This feature didn’t work in iOS 14, the OS it shipped with, or in 15. It worked in 16, which is when I discovered that the native player has this feature, but it stopped working after updating to 17.
I also use, in decreasing order of usage, a Moto G60 Fusion (with a debloated and de-Googled stock ROM), a Pixel 6A (running Graphene OS), and a Mi A2 (with Ubuntu Touch). Unlike my daily driver, these devices do not have a SIM card and serve as experiments to assess the feasibility of living without reliance on big tech. I acquired these phones from friends and family who were either discarding them or exchanging them for new ones. I also disassembled a few older Asus Zenfone and Redmi Note models that were either too outdated or bricked, to learn more about their innards and architecture.
LG V20. It’s old as shit but it has tons of features that you can’t get all on a new phone. IMO phone technology peaked on this one.
Just off the top of my head: Headphone jack, Replaceable battery, Small second screen you can put app shortcuts on, Hi-fi DAC, IR blaster, SD slot
Pixel 8. No complaints.
Stock ROM?
yup
